We’re a few precious breaths from 2010, and if there’s anything we’re looking forward to, it’s some wicked fast USB 3.0 storage — Intel be damned. Set to hit shelves sometime in January, A-DATA’s N002 Combo Flash Drive sports both SATA II and a USB 3.0 connection. Using the latter, the drive boasts up to 200MB/sec read and 170 MB/sec write speeds. Or if you’re feeling retro, you can take advantage of that backwards-compatibility and connect via USB 2.0. Now, we don’t know how much this bad boy will cost, but it will be bundled with A-DATA UFD to GO software. Of course, this thing is not nearly as cute as the Kissing Octopus USB drive, but we’re sure it’s not without its charms.
Just when you thought you’d seen it all with Nexus One, along comes an old friend with some higher resolution shots of the handset (hooray!) and a pretty impressive 3D benchmark test using Qualcomm’s Neocore. Video’s after the break –that Snapdragon chip outputs a mean framerate, no?
Update: Also on hand after the break is a high-quality video of the UI — ten minutes of it, to be exact. Just a warning, there’s a brief NSFW clip from Californication at around the two minute mark. With that said, grab some popcorn and enjoy!
Update 2: The original YouTube video was pulled. We’ve uploaded a new copy and embedded below.
Okay, you’re not surprised that some companies are going to have new gear at CES, are you? Well, we”re hearing that Sling — a company that’s not had much news this year beyond the release of its iPhone app — will definitely unleash some new stuff in Las Vegas, including “WiFi television, ultra-slim Slingboxes, and a next-generation touch screen device.” Now, we don’t want to get everyone overly excited this early in the day, but those all definitely sound like upgrades to us. We really don’t know if Sling will let slip any more specific info between now and CES, but as you know, we’ll be In Vegas when it all goes down, so sit back and be patient. It won’t be long, now.
This article was written on December 28, 2006 by CyberNet.
You’re definitely going to want an invite for this one, just to try it out! Hey! Watch is a new online video converter that’s currently an invitation only beta. They’ve been working on this for a year, and now they’re just about ready for their full launch. Paid programs have been available for a while now, but a free online services that include the ability to upload from hard drives or a URL haven’t. They’re even offering a full API.
So, with no software needed, only a browser, you can get started. Just about any source is game like:
Online video services (Youtube, MySpace, Google Video, etc.)
Video Podcast feeds
Video links (direct or from a webpage)
Videos from your very own hard drive
After you’ve selected your source, then you’re able to choose from just about any output format you could want and to just about any device like:
They’re offering a full API which means developers will be able to create plugins and extensions which will certainly help the program expand. They also make use of a bookmarklet so that it is easy to keep track of the videos you’re wanting to convert and keep. For example, if you’re viewing a video on Youtube, you can click the button and go back to the file later from the RSS feed (An RSS feed has been created for user’s converted files).
While this sounds like an awesome online video converter, I do have my concerns over the time it might take to upload a video from your hard drive, convert it, and then re-download it. Will people really be willing to take the time? The time it might take to do something like this may not be worth it. Earlier today, Ryan pointed this out in his CyberNotes article “How to Convert your Files for Free.” One of the free applications that he mentioned specifically for media is called MediaCoder which would do the same types of converting for free without the hassle of uploading and downloading. Another concern for Hey! Watch is bandwidth costs which could quickly blow them out of the water if the service takes off.
Regardless, it’s worth trying out, particularly if you have a fast Internet connection and you don’t like to clutter your computer with software. While it’s a ‘private’ beta, they do have an option to get an invite. You simply enter in your email address, and you will receive an invite soon.
The 2000s left us feeling battered, but the 2010s are looking awesome. Thanks to recent scientific research and an explosion of cultural interest in science fiction, there are at least 15 brilliant reasons to stick around for another decade.
Image by Dan Lydersen.
15. Lost returns Sure, it may not last for the entire decade, but you can start the ‘tens right by feeding your confused and delighted brain with the conclusion to JJ Abrams’ time-twisting tale of an island that ripped the fabric of space-time. Lost returns Feb. 2 to begin its sixth and final season.
14. Molecular machines As nanotechnology emerges from science fiction into the laboratory, one of the most promising nanotech applications is the molecular motor – an engineered molecule that can do anything from deliver a payload of medicine to a hard-to-reach part of the body, to crawl up your DNA to repair damage. Molecular motors might serve as cellular “prosthetics,” attaching to cells to augment their functioning (yes, you can overclock your cells). We’re pretty far from having replicators, but we may have ultra-tiny robots that can zoom through our blood and fix us up far more elegantly than the surgeon’s knife ever could.
13. Ridley Scott returns to scifi. He peeled the top layer off our brains and eyeballs with scifi flicks Alien and Blade Runner, and then went on to make dramas without any spaceships or dystopian future cities in them. At last one of science fiction’s greatest cinematic auteurs has pledged to make the ‘tens the decade when he returns to the genre. He’s got movie versions of Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in the works, as well as a prequel to Alien. Knowing these films are coming from Scott is going to keep us on the edge of our (movie theater) seats for the next ten years.
12. A follow-up to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. With her brilliant literary fantasy novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke changed both fantasy writing and what was considered acceptable in literary circles. She took a novel scientific-historical approach to her story of two magicians who become involved in politics and warfare in England during the Napoleonic Wars. Fans have been waiting for a sequel to the novel for quite a while, and insiders at Clarke’s publishing house says she’s definitely under contract to write one – supposedly a sequel set in the Middle East and Asia – but there’s no deadline for this author who might take up to 10 years to write a novel. Let’s assume optimistically that she’s already been working on it for a couple of years – that means sometime in the ‘tens we’ll get to plunge into another of Clarke’s amazing tales of magic and geopolitical history.
11. A much-needed population dropoff is imminent. The US Census recently released its projections for global population expansion and decline over the next few decades. Although the population is growing, its rate of growth is entering a steep decline. Next decade may be the beginning of the end of the population explosion, which is good news for everyone – especially people who will be living on the planet 100 years from now.
10. Green development. Over the next decade, we’ll start to see results from programs designed to foster green development, like Google’s major alternative energy initiative RE<C or the US Department of Energy’s investments in green resources. Electric cars could come to dominate the roads, and eco-friendly urban developments (like China’s delayed Dongtan) could start opening their doors to residents. What happens when old energy is challenged by new energy? Live through the ‘tens and you just might find out.
9. Dubai skyline. Pretty much every major construction project and architectural wonder is being planned for the insta-city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The world’s tallest building, the world’s roundest building, and the world’s most elaborate human-engineered islands are all part of Dubai’s future skyline and footprint. Though the Dubai government’s investment wing, Dubai World, is suffering a debt crisis, there is still ample time for it to be resolved with a bailout – and many of the region’s biggest projects (like world’s tallest building Burj Dubai) have continued despite financial setbacks. We can’t wait to see what the future looks like in the Middle East’s most cosmopolitan region.
8. Joss Whedon conquers the web After the disasters of Dollhouse and Firefly last decade, Joss Whedon has sworn off television and pledged to take his dark SF/fantasy visions direct to the web. He’s already won our hearts with his first web series, Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog. As web series grow in legitimacy, and most people turn to their monitors to watch TV, we anticipate that this may be the smartest move Whedon has ever made. We can’t wait to set our phasers to interweb and watch the next thing Whedon’s imagination will spawn.
7. Alastair Reynolds’ 10 books in 10 years for Orbit. A master of smart, intriguing space operas like Revelation Space, Reynolds has become over the past decade one of the most sought-after science fiction writers in the genre. UK publisher Orbit acknowledged his stature by offering the author an unprecedented book deal: £1 million to write 10 books over the next decade – approximately one per year. Reynolds is starting with what he calls an “African inflected” trilogy about how humanity will finally get offworld and start colonizing space.
6. Steven Moffat takes over Doctor Who Writer of some of the new Doctor Who‘s strongest episodes, such as “The Empty Child” and “Blink,” Moffat is also known for creating the BBC series Jekyll, which wowed critics and viewers with its intense reimagining of the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale. Now that showrunner Russell T. Davies has stepped down, Moffat is taking over running Doctor Who starting in 2010 with the new series’ fifth season. Saying that we can’t wait is a major understatement.
5. Exploring the asteroid belt with Dawn satellite. Launched in 2007, the Dawn satellite is due to rendezvous with the large Vesta asteroids and with Ceres, the largest planetoid in the asteroid belt. Researchers believe that these asteroids will be packed with metals like nickel as well as ice. If we ever hope to send missions to the outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn (home to Titan, a moon that might support life), we’re going to need a stop-off point with a rich natural store of water (a source of oxygen, among other things) as well as metals. This mission, the first to examine the Vestas and Ceres up close, could help establish the asteroid belt as a massive rest stop for travelers in our solar system.
4. Synthetic life. Last decade, genome warlord Craig Venter promised – and nearly delivered – an entirely synthetic bacterium, with DNA made from scratch (well, from polymers) in the lab. Meanwhile synthetic biology pioneers like Drew Endy have worked to make the tools of genetic engineering available to everyone who wants to experiment with DNA. Researchers have created DNA-controlled counters and students invented bacteria that can locate buried landmines for the annual synthetic biology iGEM competition at MIT. In the ‘tens, get ready for the first synthetic organism, quickly followed by the second through the twentieth. We probably won’t be getting pigs with wings any time soon, but we could get bacteria that eat pollution in the ocean.
3. Space opera conquers movies. With JJ Abrams working on two sequels to his rebooted Star Trek series, Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (director of Wall-E) doing his John Carter of Mars movie, James Cameron contemplating other movies set in the Avatar universe, and Duncan Jones (director of Moon) signed on to helm several other scifi projects (including two more movies set in the Moon universe), it looks like space opera might be the new awesomeness in cinema. Instead of mutants and zombies destroying the Earth, spaceships and tales of astropolitics will be expanding our minds. And that’s something to look forward to.
2. Finding the Higgs boson particle. The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is just getting started on the many physics experiments scheduled to zoom through its long underground tunnels. By far the most widely-anticipated experiment will (hopefully) reveal the elusive Higgs boson, a particle that scientists believe is responsible for giving mass to every object in the universe. Isolating the Higgs boson could help us understand where mass comes from, and why some particles (like photons) are massless. If discovery is the first step towards mastery, then who knows where the Higgs boson could take us?
1. The Mars Science Laboratory Set to launch in 2011 and land on Mars in 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory is NASA’s latest effort to explore whether life like ours ever existed on Mars – and could be supported there again. The Laboratory is a robot rover called Curiosity, and is like a much larger and more sophisticated version of the two Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity. According to NASA:
The rover will analyze dozens of samples scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. The record of the planet’s climate and geology is essentially “written in the rocks and soil” — in their formation, structure, and chemical composition. The rover’s onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the martian environment was like in the past.
So why get so excited about another Martian rover? Because what Curiosity discovers will help bring us closer to establishing a Martian base which could one day become the foundation for a thriving Martian civilization. And that’s the kind of future that we live for.
No words can stress how much we’re sick of Apple ‘iSlate‘ rumors right now, but when someone with powerful links speaks up, we gotta take note. Kai-fu Lee — former Google China president — has joined the Apple rumor mill by leaking what he claims to be insider knowledge of the device. Now, we’ve heard a lot of this same noise before: sub-$1000 price, an iPhone-like appearance, 10.1-inch multitouch screen, video conferencing, cellular connectivity, 3D graphics and virtual keyboard. What really got our attention is Lee’s link with Foxconn — the Apple OEM is one of the main contributors to Lee’s post-Google investment venture, Innovation Works, so there’s a good chance that Lee’s spoken to someone overlooking the manufacturing of a certain Apple device. Of course, we can’t abide Lee’s final proclamation that “Apple expects to produce near ten million units in the first year!” This is pretty bold considering Apple’s only sold five million portable computers so far this year (and ten million was the number of iPods sold in Q3 2009 alone), but hey, who knows if Steve Jobs has already worked out a subsidizing plan with some carriers to lure us all?
Unnamed source tells Fox News the company will hold a mobile-focused event in San Francisco on January 26, which could be the day its long-awaited tablet makes its debut. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10423062-37.html” class=”origPostedBlog”News – Apple/a/p
Not much to say here other than there’s a PlayStation emulator for the HD2 and it bloody well works! The original gangster of consoles, already emulated on other WinMo devices such as Toshiba’s TG01, has made its way to HTC’s finest thanks to version 0.10 of the First PlayStation Emulator for Windows CE. You can hit the read link to find out how to get it up and running on your own handset, and then we’ll naturally expect you to come back and tell us how good it felt to play Final Fantasy VII in a whole new way. The more impatient among you will already be watching video of the HD2 running Tekken 3 effortlessly after the break, so go join ’em already.
A packaging mixup may have revealed the next DVR coming from TiVo. Unfortunately this doesn’t appear to be the Series4 we were looking for, but the “TiVo Premiere” (or Premiere XL) instructions sent along with a new TiVo HD to self-described Chicagoland geek Patrick McCarron show a slimmed down box with one (multistream only) CableCARD slot instead two and no S-video or phone jack. The prevailing speculation is this is a lower cost revision of the existing Series3 hardware that could be on shelves very soon, but we’re still hoping for updated internals and UI to make TiVo fresh for the next decade. The full instructions are scanned and posted over at Infinite Shamrock, for confirmation and any real details on what’s next we’ll probably be waiting until next week in Las Vegas.
Gizmodiva: GasCase.jpg The GasCase is certainly a very intriguing luggage carrier. It is made from a jerrycan that is nothing but a metal gas can. The cans are split down the middle and fitted with a zipper and a clasp in two different style- one designed like typical luggage for clothes and the “flip top” style is for business documents or records for a DJ. You will look really cool lugging this around. It looks quite sturdy and ready for wear and tear. Expect a few stares if you get this one. It’s available for 140 and comes in colors.
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You’re definitely going to want an invite for this one, just to try it out! 
